7yo chooses bday cake cousin is allergic to; gets called 'selfish and ungrateful.' AITA?
"AITA for letting my daughter have a peanut butter cake when my nephew is allergic?"
So my daughter recently turned seven, and for our “family party” she asked for a peanut butter and chocolate cake. I agreed. I let my sister know not to bring my nephew (3) because of his allergy. (It’s so bad that he can’t even be near/breathe in peanut butter particles).
She asked if I would change the cake to be just chocolate so that my nephew could come. I said no, that it was my daughter’s cake and she can have peanut butter if she wants.
She called me unreasonable because my daughter could have had peanut butter cake for her 'friend party' (she didn’t have cake with her friends, she just had pizza). She said that my daughter needs to learn to compromise for the sake of family. I told her that I would talk to my daughter, but not to expect a seven year old to choose her baby cousin over her favorite cake.
My conversation with my daughter played out just like I predicted, and when I told my sister, she called my daughter selfish and ungrateful. She said that I’m a bad parent because I “taught her to hate (nephew)”. She threatened that if my nephew wasn’t welcome, that neither she nor her husband would come either. I said that was fine, because she wasn’t welcome either.
I then reached out to my BIL to let him know what was going on and to tell him he was still welcome if he wanted to come. He thanked me, but said that he would stay home to support my sister.
Her party came and went, and my sister is still being very distant and cold. This has me wondering if I was too harsh to her and my nephew, or too soft on my daughter. AITA?
Here's what people had to say to OP:
vaguelycatshaped asks:
INFO: Do you usually celebrate with your nephew and sister and BIL for the 'family part' of birthdays? Like, is that the yearly tradition?
LonelyFruitbat OP responded:
My daughter usually has two parties, one with friends and one with my sister, BIL, nephew, and other relatives who live in our area.
hightidesoldgods writes:
YTA. Under normal circumstances I would say NTA, because while allergies do suck the world doesn’t revolve around them and frankly it’s your daughter’s birthday.
Except this time it isn’t. It’s your daughter’s second birthday party because she has two parties for her birthday. Considering the second is a family event, and she’s already had her first party, its pretty reasonable to say “actually we can’t have peanut butter for the second party because it’ll make your cousin really sick,” and then compromise by having the peanut butter cake as the cake for her first party.
pap_shmear writes:
Hard disagree. It doesn't matter if the daughter had 2 parties. They are still her parties. Her birthday. Her party. Her cake.
StarGazer8556 writes:
YTA. This is her SECOND party. Have peanut butter at the party with friends. Peanut butter cake at the FAMILY party when there is FAMILY that’s deathly allergic is a crappy move.
ShallWeStartThen writes:
YTA- I get your daughter wanted a peanut butter cake but it's a bit sh*t to exclude your sister's family from the family party. Your sister didn't chose to have a child with such a severe allergy and must worry about his health constantly. It would have been a nice gesture to have a different cake and got a peanut butter cake as an extra for your daughter later on.
Instead you call her to instruct her not to bring her son. Your post sounds like really mean towards her TBH. You clearly don't seem to like her much, and the fact that you told her not to come and then proceeded to call her husband her invite him without her? Wow.
LonelyFruitbat OP responded:
I told her not to come because of her comments about my daughter, my BIL said no such thing so why wouldn’t he be invited?
painter222 writes:
I’m starting to wonder if you didn’t have the allergy cake at the friend party because it is well known not to serve peanuts and nuts in general to kids.
LonelyFruitbat OP responded:
It’s partially because of that, and also because it’s somewhat of a tradition to eat pizza with friends and cake with family.
hightidesoldgods writes:
So you recognize that serving peanuts and nuts to kids in general is bad when it’s your kid’s friends and make the effort to not do that - but not when it’s your own nephew who you know has the allergy?
LonelyFruitbat OP responded:
Because she wants a peanut butter cake and I’d rather serve it to a group of people who I know don’t have any allergies (my family sans nephew) than a group of seven year olds I’ve met maybe three times.